It'll just take some time...

I sat next to one of my best friends yesterday while her mother was lowered into her final resting place.

Something so awful doesn't feel real while it's happening. My heart is broken for my friend. I knew, and thought the entire way there (... I had some time.. changed planes 3xs), that there was absolutely nothing I could say or do to bring her comfort. There wasn't anything I could do to ease her pain. Ugh.

We're always so shocked and in disbelief when a loved one dies - but it is going to happen for all of us. My friend knows her mom's heart was in the right place - she knows where she is - so why does it sting so much? I don't think there is any way to prepare for the loss of a parent - no matter their age or quality of life when they have to leave....

The thing that brought a smile to her face: the strangers that had their lives touched by her mom - the nurses that cared for her mom and people my friend had never really met came to her to tell her how great of a friend her mom was to them, or how she helped them with a tough time. It was really sweet.

I've been in South Texas since Thursday evening... it was hard to come back and leave my friend, but a girl has to work.

My stomach is happy that I'm back. I am pretty sure I ate my weight in Mexican food while I was there. Those grieving Mexicans really know how to whip up some spectacular food. I had lots of hot sauce. Fajitas two days in a row. Some meat that I didn't want to ask questions about - but it was delicious. Some legit rice. countless tortillas. Ahhhhh. It's a good thing I don't live there... I really could eat that food every. day.

Oh, and sweet bread. I had never had such a thing. It's every where down there!! I'm going to have to have some shipped here.... no. no. I don't need to do that.

Yesterday evening ended with a cook-out (where I consumed more of the previously mentioned items...) and a good time. The family and friends shared memories of her mother - and had some much needed laughs.

Send a couple of prayers my friend's way...

I love you, Annette. Your mother was very obviously a sweet, wonderful lady who had many people love her.

Dogs have absolutely no sense of time. That must be nice.

We have two dogs. One is small and spastic... the other is large and dopey - always in a great mood. The small spastic one is mine, the large sweet one is my husband's (.... I don't know how this happened). We also have one old (age undetermined) cranky cat of at least 8 Years. She is also mine, but likes my mister more than she likes me.

Leaving my dogs for an extended amount of time is always harder on ME than it is on them, for sure. I can leave Pete (small spastic one) at "school" for a week while we vacation go, and when I pick him up - he will lick my face and remind me how much he loves me even though for the last 168 hours he has been in that miniature-Pete-sized prison that I know he can't enjoy because he is the princess at our house. Thanks to no sense of time, he does not even calculate that while I've been getting a tan on the beach, he has been eating DRY dog food and taking two quick walks a day instead of just.... going outside whenever he wants. He cannot possibly weigh out how awful it is that I've been drinking umbrella drinks while he hasn't had any fun at all (except maybe the occasional opportunity to hump something other than a pillow).
Shep (large dopey) is the outside dog - but he doesn't hold it against us. He even witnesses how well kept Pete is and never gets cranky.

The same rules do not apply to Cranky Old Cat. Bella.

Bella is..... a complete bitch. She found me. Decided that I would be the human to feed her forever and has pretty much told me how it's going to be since that Fall of 2005 when she ran under my bed and declared my territory as hers. This cat, although she has her moments, runs our house. When she is hungry, she politely TRIPS me to let me know (even if she has food in her bowl, sometimes she just likes the act of being fed. I'm not kidding). She finds my clean piles of laundry and makes nasty Bella hair wads in them. Since I don't do laundry until I absolutely have to, this is a big annoyance. And if we DARE go out of town to enjoy ourselves away from the house, she will pull her hair out, knock things off of shelves, vomit in strategic locations so that we will step in it and do all except what cats just do not do, which is defecate on the floor. They are above that.

However, Bella is sweet sometimes. When she knows she may get a Bella-treat.... yeah, she is only nice if she wants something. She is like a perpetual teenage girl. On her period. All. The. Time.

Naturally, Bella is beautiful. Striking green eyes and a gorgeous coat. She even looks kind of sweet.

She isn't.

She is staring at me now. I'm definitely about to get tripped just because she wants me to look at her full food bowl.

So, back to my point: dogs don't have a sense of time. I hope it's okay that I'm jealous. Bella obviously has a sense of time, and chooses to hold it against me as often as she possibly can. I caught myself thinking about this today at work... I've been out for a few days ill - and today was my first full day back. It was HARD to be at work all day. I was SO sure that an hour had gone by and it had only been 8 minutes.... terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE to be a clock watcher at work (which typically, I am not... and if my boss is reading this... NEVERRRR) but after being down and having the life sucked out of me by some crappy lung thing, today was long. Plus it was the end of the month - which is never easy at my job. Lots of intenseness... yes. Intenseness.

I suppose I should try to at least react to time like my small spastic dog... he is always loving. Always glad that what is happening, is happening. He is also always smelly... so.... there's that.